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Riggs witness saw man digging in graveyard

A witness in the Patricia Riggs murder case has told investigators he saw a man fitting her husband's description digging in a cemetery at 4am soon after she vanished, a Brisbane court has heard.

Edmund Ian Riggs was refused bail in the Supreme Court on Friday, having been charged earlier this year with the cold-case murder of his wife.

He's also accused of interfering with her body.

Mrs Riggs' decomposed remains were unearthed during renovations by a subsequent owner of the couple's former home at Margate, north of Brisbane, in August this year.

Prosecutors allege she was killed about 15 years earlier and that her body was initially disposed of somewhere else, where it decomposed, before her incomplete skeleton was moved to the Margate property.

The court was told a witness had seen a man digging in a Redcliffe cemetery at 4am, "probably" in very early October 2001.

In recapping the prosecution's evidence before refusing bail, Justice James Douglas said the witness "remarked on the unusual activity in a cemetery at that time of the morning".

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But Justice Douglas said it wasn't until more than two years later that the witness recalled what he'd seen, after coming across a news report about Mrs Riggs' disappearance.

He said the same witness later picked out a photo of Riggs, from a police photoboard of 12 faces, as the man he'd seen digging at the graveyard although he recalled the man as "possibly having darker hair".

It's alleged Mrs Riggs was killed on or about the night of September 30, 2001. That was the last time the couple's four children saw their mother.

Crown prosecutor Sarah Farnden said Riggs didn't report her missing until days later and in the intervening period made only "token" efforts to find her.

The court also heard that Riggs had left his brother's house, where he'd been staying, at midnight on October 16, 2001 after blood spatter was found on a wall behind Mrs Riggs' bed.

The blood had been linked to Mrs Riggs via a DNA analysis of samples provided by her parents, but further tests are still pending.

After leaving his brother's house, where he left behind a copy of his will, Riggs went to Byron Bay and Nimbin where he used a false name to check into budget accommodation, paying in cash, the court heard.

But by late October, after an incident of self-harm, he returned to the home of his mother, who was caring for the couple's children.

In arguing for bail, Riggs' lawyer Lars Falcongreen said the accused''s children and family were in court to support him, had maintained contact since his arrest, and that two of his children had each put up $50,000 as surety.

He said it "seemed strange .. that he would move them (bones) from a cemetery back to his own premises" and there were many people who would have had access to the Margate home.

Blood from various people had been found in various places in the house and he said there could be an innocent explanation for the spatter found in the bedroom, he said.